Optimism

There will be an organizing meeting for a new Libertarian Party chapter for my county on Monday and I’ll be there with bells on.  I’m watching the political news from around the country and the number of places where normal party votes didn’t follow tradition - and the wholesale changes in the distribution of party registrations - make me very optimistic for ‘10.  I think there is a ground swell of dissatisfaction with the two majors.

 I’ve been thinking about publicity and what to do to capture the imaginations and attention of vulnerable voters and I have a couple ideas, feel free to chime in.

1. Send out an email nationally to the LP members and ask for single sentences about why they are members of the party.  Use them, don’t just put them in a drawer.  Use them in press releases, in letters to the editor, pair them with pretty pictures and make a coffee table book. 

2. Get a couple writers to write weekly columns about the libertarian perspective on the week’s news.  Get them syndicated and in newspapers or weeklies.  Start by putting them out as a blog and RSS feed.

3.  Write pamphlets and hand them out like bible tracts - position them like the different gospels.  The gospels are written each appealing to a different group: Matthew to the Jews about the language, Mark to the Romans about the actions, Luke to the Greeks about the followers.  We need to tailor the message to the audience.  To the Blue Dog Democrats about how you can keep the social liberalism without the fiscal liberalism of big government …  To the moderate Republicans about how you can be more conservative fiscally and have the socalial freedoms that the religous right would like to legislate.  And, to the Absolute Libertarians that from a practical standpoint, in a culturally mixed, economically and educationally diverse society there must be some safeguards designed and enforced by a federal government.

 There are the three that I’ll be starting with.  I’m hoping for a good showing - if not then I’ll be a leader of one.  What’s that old Barry Manilow song?  “Just one voice, singing in the darkness, All it takes is one voice…”

 Just One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
All it takes is One Voice,
Singing so they hear what’s on your mind,
And when you look around you’ll find
There’s more than

One Voice,
Singing in the darkness,
Joining with your One Voice,
Each and every note another octave,
Hands are joined and fears unlocked,
If only

One Voice
Would start it on its own,
We need just One Voice facing the unknown,
And then that One Voice would never be alone,
It takes that One Voice. 
 

This entry was posted on November 21, 2008 at 22:09 and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.